Beck Vass and Richie Robinson say they are amazed at how drunk you can feel and still be legally allowed to drive. Photo / Natalie Slade
The Government believes NZ drivers aren't ready to moderate their drinking. We know they are.
So take responsibility for keeping our roads safe by signing up: Two Drinks Max. Here is one of the stories that sparked the campaign.
In July, the Weekend Herald decided to find out in a carefully supervised experiment using reporter Beck Vass and photographer Richie Robinson how much a person can drink and still be under the alcohol limit. Here are the results.
After eight beers, Richie walks into a chair and announces with a crooked grin: "I just walked into a chair."
At nine, he's pretty hammered - not that I can talk - and sits quietly, his eyes taking longer to blink than normal. But he can still drive home.
After nine bottles (11.7 standard drinks), he blows 400 - the legal limit - on the breath-analyser, a pass by New Zealand drink-drive limits.
Worse, he hasn't eaten since he had lunch at 3.30pm except for the chips and garlic breads we snack on as we conduct our experiment.
I'm not doing much better. I went over the limit three wines back, right about the time I spat towards my colleague while telling her how much "I love this song".
I'd been feeling the wine since the end of number two. Not drunk or anything, I could just tell I'd had a couple.
If I was driving, I would have stopped there - and it would have been over a longer time frame. If I lived in Australia, that would be my limit. I blew 230mcg and their limit - the one New Zealand's might have been if the Government lowered it - is 250mcg.
But, in the interests of accuracy in our unscientific social experiment, we keep our normal pace, just as we would at any after-work drinking session.
After four standard drinks, I'm not too worried about accuracy, wondering aloud: "They can't expect me to do an accurate job drinking, can they?"
After five (500ml) I'm still legal to drive, just under the limit at 380mcg.
My workmate says: "I would NOT get into a car with you right now."
Good. Because I don't want to drive anyway. I've got a wine in one hand and a potato wedge in the other. I burn my tongue.
My notes get pretty scribbly from this point. I skip pages and can't decipher some. I've written the times I am recording down with numbers in the wrong order (which I figure out sober).
The next day, I'm a wee bit dusty but it's nothing I haven't done once or twice before. Richie's not as good. Both of us - especially Richie - are stunned by how drunk we can be before being over the legal limit.
There's no way to properly estimate how much each person can handle.
Gavin reckons the limit's ridiculously high. As someone who sells alcohol and drug-testing equipment to companies testing their workers through his business Sober Check, he often shocks people by showing them how much they can drink.
He says the number of drinks a person can consume varies, even for the same person on different days depending on factors including their weight, fat-to-muscle ratio, tiredness, stress levels and the amount of food they've eaten.
He's called on politicians to do a similar experiment. He wants to see them drink themselves to just under the 400mcg limit, guaranteeing they'll be feeling too drunk to drive.
"Would a politician put their wife, partner, loved one, children - whatever - in a car and let them drive off with someone who is 380mcg, just under the legal limit? Now, if they wouldn't do that, why would they keep the limit how it is?"
